


i keep having this dream

by apocryphic



Category: Prey (Video Game 2017)
Genre: Game Spoilers, Gen, Gender-Neutral Morgan, Identity Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-09
Updated: 2017-05-09
Packaged: 2018-10-29 20:23:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,550
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10861410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/apocryphic/pseuds/apocryphic
Summary: "I warned you," January says.





	i keep having this dream

**Author's Note:**

> truthfully i just like exploring january + morgan's dynamic and the differences between how january reflects morgan's outlook at the time... and how morgan might have a different mindset later because of Events In The Game (and not remembering giving january any directives anyways)
> 
> but yeah SPOILERS TAKE CARE

The fear is natural.

Morgan has felt fear as exhilaration, as anger, as the unknown. They have run the gamut with fear and come out on the other side. In their sleep, they've been swallowed by unfeeling space and spat back out as less of a person; the endless black has dragged them through their own head again and again, has left them somehow different.

The fear is _only natural_.

But Morgan feels that fear in center of the hole that aches in the back of their brain, in the pit of their chest, in the shape of their lungs, and in the very deepest parts of their mind they can't hope to reach anymore. The sound it makes, a roar, a scream, a growl; the way it looms up and up further and _writhes_ , _curls_ into something with form, the black engulfing the air around it —

They've had this dream before.

"Morgan."

It takes a moment too long for them to realize the voice is coming from their transcribe and not from inside their head. January. Of course it's January, of course it is.

"It's hunting you."

Morgan runs.

They slam the manual lock on every door they run through, neuromods meant for conditioning keeping their muscles from burning but doing nothing for the way their head pounds with each staccato beat of their heart. They hit the last lock at the wrong angle, knock their knuckles against it too hard, muffle the harsh sound of pain by biting their tongue until they taste copper.

The _sound_ —

The room is someone's office, they realize when they’ve come to a dead end, feet unmoving, body rigid. Their chest heaves, throat working. Neuromod Division. The name on the plaque means nothing to them, and they don't care to figure out the face that goes along with it. These people have taken up enough of their brainpower for a lifetime and more.

Morgan sinks to the floor against the desk, faces the wall opposite from the door, and stays very, very quiet. Knees bent, they rest their elbows against the tops of their legs. They breathe, though the air is hardly enough. Their hand feels swollen beneath the glove. They have to cut the glove off, they have to use a medkit, they have to cut it off first.

The clock on the wall ticks. They stare at their hand, still. _This isn_ ' _t my hand,_ they think, and then frown, and don't think it again.

Morgan learns that with the appearance of the Nightmare comes a creeping dread that gathers sweat at the nape of their neck, a chill along their spine and then something frigid and _wrong_ deeper than that, in the very root of their brain.

The clock keeps ticking.

They also learn this: with the Nightmare's disappearance, comes a longing, starving emptiness.

They've had this dream before.

 

 

Eventually the dread ends. Morgan drags themselves up, making it to the restrooms. The foyer is entirely silent outside of the sound of their footsteps, only the occasional sounds of a synthesizer coming from the speakers. The fake, blue-tinted skylight above doesn't fool them this time around; they know damn well where they are.

They maneuver around black slime left behind from dead mimics, typhon splatter dripping from the wall. Morgan pulls out a medkit and slices off their glove first, _finally_ , hardly reacting to the pain while they fix themselves up.

The mirror is shattered in one corner, lines crackling outwards. The thin, faraway lines only hint at the break, but the closer Morgan traces those lines with their gaze, the thicker and more perilous the cracks become. One more good bang to the side of the space station might send the glass spiraling off the wall and down to the floor in pieces.

Morgan rinses off their hand, looks at their reflection. Their eye is red enough that they nearly expect blood to start slipping out from the inside corner.

_Morgan Yu._

It doesn't feel right.

"Morgan," they say.

Something's wrong.

"Morgan?"

They were watching their reflection. Their mouth didn't move. That wasn't them —

Morgan blinks and glances down. Their transcribe is flashing, displaying January's name. Of course it's January. Of course it is.

"It seems to be attracted to your neuromods," January goes on, as if Morgan replied, as if it knows Morgan's paying attention now. Their ears buzz. Morgan rubs at their eye. "The alien ones, specifically, that use typhon material."

"Is that it?" Morgan feels five feet behind their body as they move again, but they manage. Gun in hand, they start off towards the lobby.

"You don't sound surprised."

Morgan shoves open the door with their shoulder. "Neither do you."

"I warned you," January says.

The line goes dark.

 

 

Their office is completely fine, but it doesn't feel safe. Morgan can't shake the paranoia resting between their shoulders, the idea that they're going to be hunted and hunted again, until there's nothing of them left. Nowhere on the station is _secure_ , they know that much from the desperate emails they've read from trapped victims, but their office at least felt like something close to a haven.

Morgan shoves waste into the recycler. Cigars, ruined pieces of tech, organs ripped from the viscous remains of typhon. It all goes in.

January nearly startles them when it starts to talk.

"They considered personality drift, caused by repeat neuromod removal," it says. "That somehow it's the only reason you're driven to be at odds with what TranStar wants, and not simply because your experiences have changed you."

Morgan stops and looks at January. The operator is floating with the slightest movement up and down, little bursts of air from its sides keeping it steady.

"My _experiences_?" Morgan says. "You mean the experimentation. The simulation. Dipping things in and out of my head?"

January doesn't even hesitate. "That is correct."

"So my _experiences_ changed me." Morgan wrinkles their nose. Going on, dryly, they add, "Whether I remember it or not."

"You don't," January says.

Morgan can almost fool themselves into thinking the operator sounds soft, but they know placation when they hear it, especially from themselves.

They hit the recycle button, listen to it churn through and rattle into the holder as raw materials.

"I _can't_ ," they say, measured. "Can something I don't remember change me? Does it _matter_?"

The operator just hovers in place, offering no rebuttal. Morgan runs a hand through their hair, helmet sitting off to the side on their office desk. The recycler still prompts them to remove the materials, but their brain is nothing but static and their hands are too slow, the new glove looking out of place, too clean, compared to the rest of their suit.

"Is it real?" Morgan asks, watching the purple exotic material gleaming, waiting to be taken.

It's not meant to be a question so much as it is trying to get a handle on the situation, on themselves. On what they know and don't know. But January answers anyway.

"That depends on your definition of real," it tells them.

Morgan snorts and gathers up the materials, moving over to the fabricator to keep working. They need another medkit, they need more ammo, they need a lot of things that this machine can't give them.

Maybe January only sounds sympathetic because Morgan wants it to. Maybe Morgan programmed it to recognize the fluctuations in their own emotional state, their shaky mental handling of the whole situation. They could imagine that being the case — could imagine poring over January's code, ripping it to shreds and putting it back together just so that January would say _hello_ in some tone of voice, the exact replication necessary to calm the blood pounding in their ears.

December had sounded wrong. An earlier model? Morgan must have gotten better at it, at some point. Sometime. A different Morgan, back then, nothing but lost now.

"Are you angry?" January asks.

It cuts through the loud silence in Morgan's head, just right. It's a struggle to gather the words, like speech is darting away from their tongue. Untouchable and unknowable. _Yes, no, I don't remember._

"Are _you_?" they reply finally.

January seems to think.

"I am…" The way it trails off at first makes Morgan think they've stumped it, but it continues on confidently. "When you created me, you knew that the station was on the cusp of disaster. You knew you were being put back into the simulation — without your consent. Were you angry then?" January pauses. Morgan thinks that if it had a body, it would shrug. It's such an unnatural thought that they're jarred for a split second. "I wouldn't doubt it."

It seems right that an angry Morgan would create an angry operator. Like a snapshot of their state of mind. Angry and wronged and knowing that they were about to start over again. The futility of it all scrapes just right against their patience.

"I'm not angry now," Morgan says. Collects their ammo. Collects their medkit. They search what they know and don't know of themselves. "I'm all _changed_ , remember?"

There's a flicker and a hum from whatever keeps the operator afloat, as if January is appreciating the wry humor, the dark edge to the remark.

"I remember," it says.

**Author's Note:**

> if this is bad or there are typos it's because it's midnight and i have to wake up to go to work in six hours


End file.
